War Invasion of Ukraine News Megathread - Thread is only for articles and discussion of articles, general discussion thread is still in Happenings.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday said that the United States will impose sanctions “far beyond” the ones that the United States imposed in 2014 following the annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

“This is the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Biden said in a White House speech, signaling a shift in his administration’s position. “We will continue to escalate sanctions if Russia escalates,” he added.

Russian elites and their family members will also soon face sanctions, Biden said, adding that “Russia will pay an even steeper price” if Moscow decides to push forward into Ukraine. Two Russian banks and Russian sovereign debt will also be sanctioned, he said.

Also in his speech, Biden said he would send more U.S. troops to the Baltic states as a defensive measure to strengthen NATO’s position in the area.

Russia shares a border with Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

A day earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops to go into the separatist Donetsk and Lugansk regions in eastern Ukraine after a lengthy speech in which he recognized the two regions’ independence.

Western powers decried the move and began to slap sanctions on certain Russian individuals, while Germany announced it would halt plans to go ahead with the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

At home, Biden is facing bipartisan pressure to take more extensive actions against Russia following Putin’s decision. However, a recent poll showed that a majority of Americans believe that sending troops to Ukraine is a “bad idea,” and a slim minority believes it’s a good one.

All 27 European Union countries unanimously agreed on an initial list of sanctions targeting Russian authorities, said French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, and EU foreign affairs head Josep Borell claimed the package “will hurt Russia … a lot.”

Earlier Tuesday, Borell asserted that Russian troops have already entered the Donbas region, which comprises Donetsk and Lugansk, which are under the control of pro-Russia groups since 2014.

And on Tuesday, the Russian Parliament approved a Putin-back plan to use military force outside of Russia’s borders as Putin further said that Russia confirmed it would recognize the expanded borders of Lugansk and Donetsk.

“We recognized the states,” the Russian president said. “That means we recognized all of their fundamental documents, including the constitution, where it is written that their [borders] are the territories at the time the two regions were part of Ukraine.”

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Putin said that Ukraine is “not interested in peaceful solutions” and that “every day, they are amassing troops in the Donbas.”

Meanwhile, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday morning again downplayed the prospect of a Russian invasion and proclaimed: “There will be no war.”

“There will not be an all-out war against Ukraine, and there will not be a broad escalation from Russia. If there is, then we will put Ukraine on a war footing,” he said in a televised address.

The White House began to signal that they would shift their own position on whether it’s the start of an invasion.

“We think this is, yes, the beginning of an invasion, Russia’s latest invasion into Ukraine,” said Jon Finer, the White House deputy national security adviser in public remarks. “An invasion is an invasion and that is what is underway.”

For weeks, Western governments have been claiming Moscow would invade its neighbor after Russia gathered some 150,000 troops along the countries’ borders. They alleged that the Kremlin would attempt to come up with a pretext to attack, while some officials on Monday said Putin’s speech recognizing the two regions was just that.

But Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters Tuesday that Russia’s “latest invasion” of Ukraine is threatening stability in the region, but he asserted that Putin can “still avoid a full blown, tragic war of choice.”

Article

 

[Stoneheart]

The ukrainians are actually perfectly capable of producing modern main battle tanks

have they ever? there is only a handfull of countries that can produce modern Battle tanks, Germany, Japan, the US and Korea. the italians, french and Brits tried it but not got it right 100% and have lost all their production know how by now.

 

[Spicey McHaggis]

You're going to need to run it through a translator, but the gist of it is that the Swiss are thinking of revising the ban on re-export. God damn, Russia. How badly do you have to fuck up for the Swiss to decide to become even slightly less neutral?

The Swiss have never been particularly comfortable with Russia, and their neutrality isn't entirely accurate. Ww2 for example they had some backdoor agreements with France to help them if Germany had invaded Switzerland (before France was overrun at least). Also the Swiss nuclear program viewed a preemptive strike on Moscow as an option before it was canceled.

 

[AgendaPoster]

The West Calls Putin's Bluff​

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kremlin officials have warned multiple times over the 11 months since the invasion of Ukraine started that Western inference could result in an escalation. However, the United States and other Western allies of Ukraine have repeatedly crossed Putin's supposed red lines.
"If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people. This is not a bluff," Putin said in September address while the U.S. continued providing Ukraine with more armaments to fight on territory illegitimately annexed by Putin.
More recently, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov provided such a warning about arming Ukraine in December. He said, "Weapon supplies continue, the assortment of supplied weapons is expanding. All this, of course, leads to an aggravation of the conflict and, in fact, does not bode well for Ukraine."
If anything, the weapons coming to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from the West escalated after Peskov's remarks. This week alone, President Joe Biden took the large step of saying the U.S. will provide Ukraine with 31 M1 Abrams tanks. His announcement came on the same day that Germany confirmed it would give Ukrainian forces 13 Leopard 2 tanks.
U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western allies of Ukraine keep ignoring Russian President Vladimir Putin's threats of war escalation if they provide Ukraine with additional weapons.
Kremlin officials and Russian state-controlled media outlets responded to the news of the tanks with outrage. But George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government professor Mark N. Katz told Newsweek that the message from the West was clear: Putin's rhetoric wasn't going to cause them to back down.
"Putin's redlines are designed to deter Western states from crossing them, but Putin has not been able to prevent the West from crossing several of them," Katz said.
Lawrence C. Reardon, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, told Newsweek, "There is a growing global perception that Russian leaders resemble the boy that cried wolf."
He added, "When Russian forces are under pressure, Putin indirectly talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons to defend Russia, especially to defend the newly annexed areas of southeast Ukraine such as the Crimea."
Reardon said that while Western leaders haven't taken Putin's words as fact, they nevertheless likely don't take Russia's nuclear capabilities—or the chance of an angry Putin using them in Ukraine—for granted.
"Thus, the recent hesitance by Berlin and Washington to provide sophisticated tanks is not just related to the difficulty of Ukraine absorbing these tanks into their fighting forces, but also a fear of escalating the conflict," he said. "But western leaders are not crying wolf and no doubt have warned Putin that NATO will rapidly escalate involvement should Putin resort to tactical nuclear weapons."
Katz noted that "Putin and his cronies have already declared that Russia is at war with NATO or the 'Collective West,' not just Ukraine."
"The U.S. and NATO do seem to take seriously the possibility that there are some things Ukraine might do which could result in Putin escalating the conflict," he said.
Another reason why Ukraine's Western allies may feel emboldened in their support of Ukraine is that Russia for the most part has stumbled in its war efforts, according to Katz.
"If Putin's forces are not doing so well against Ukraine, it is hard to see how they can do better by escalating the conflict by attacking any NATO member," he said.

 

[Fanatical Pragmatist]

Turkey shouldn't be in NATO to begin with.

IMO.

I don't know, I'm digging the whole "No Russia, you can't pass your ships through the Bosphorous" thing.

"This is not a bluff," Putin said in September

If you have to tell people its not a bluff, then it's probably a bluff.

 

[Snekposter]

I don't know, I'm digging the whole "No Russia, you can't pass your ships through the Bosphorous" thing.

Well, we could always help Greece reconquer Constantinople and the Bosporus and then restore the Hagia Sophia.

 

[CuzinEd]

Again, this relies on the Slav telling the FC about the new ammo (and telling it correctly)



Not all contractors are the same. Some of them are civilians collecting a paycheck, but others are put in uniform. You aren't subject to the UCMJ or part of any military branch. You are a uniformed contractor because it afforded them protections under the Geneva convention. That is, if Foreign (russian) intelligence scoops you up, you have to be treated as POW under the Geneva convention. But DoD was super anal about when and where you can wear the uniform.
Its pretty common for military medical personnel.
My guess would be anyone wrenching on tanks in a war zone is going to be in a uniform. Not sure how that'd shake out if you're working for the DoD in Ukraine.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

https://www.army.mil/article/7979/yongsan_civilians_in_uniform_raise_eyebrows

So we should support the return of Constantinople to Greece and kick out the mudslimes. Agreed.

Also their Army WAS of good quality. (Comparatively, I mean they did get their ass handed to them by the Greeks.) Erdogan & his party has been purging the officer core over the past two decades or so, replacing "competence" with "loyalty" as the main qualification for promotion. Ataturk's legacy of preventing the Turk military from becoming another Arab army (and preventing Cleric rule and becoming another Pedo-worshipping backwater) is being pissed away.


The 10 challenegers/30 Abrams are more about having a training platform and testing your logistics than a fighting force. My assumption is that the US wants to see proven logistics and tactics before they commit to shipping Abrams.


Ukraine is going to need to move away from the T-72 in the by now inevitable induction into NATO.

Ukraine also doesn't have a huge cadre of T-72 crews. Ukraine's previous tank of choice was (upgraded) T-64s. I'll grant that moving someone from T-64 to T-72 will be easier than Leopard/Challenger/Abrams. They are also training more soldiers than they had before the war; no reason to train the new guys on old equipment.

Solid point on the logistics, but again the T-72 wasn't their primary tank. And in the first couple months of the war Ukraine's logistics competence surprised everyone.

Most of the NATO countries in Eastern Europe were still using old Soviet equipment. I don't think they all had modern Western tanks. From what I understand the T-64 was basically just a T-72 anyway. The Abrams uses jet fuel from what I have read. The Leopard 2 uses diesel. All these tanks are just going to cause supply and logistics issues for the Ukrainians.

The West Calls Putin's Bluff​

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kremlin officials have warned multiple times over the 11 months since the invasion of Ukraine started that Western inference could result in an escalation. However, the United States and other Western allies of Ukraine have repeatedly crossed Putin's supposed red lines.
"If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people. This is not a bluff," Putin said in September address while the U.S. continued providing Ukraine with more armaments to fight on territory illegitimately annexed by Putin.
More recently, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov provided such a warning about arming Ukraine in December. He said, "Weapon supplies continue, the assortment of supplied weapons is expanding. All this, of course, leads to an aggravation of the conflict and, in fact, does not bode well for Ukraine."
If anything, the weapons coming to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from the West escalated after Peskov's remarks. This week alone, President Joe Biden took the large step of saying the U.S. will provide Ukraine with 31 M1 Abrams tanks. His announcement came on the same day that Germany confirmed it would give Ukrainian forces 13 Leopard 2 tanks.
U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western allies of Ukraine keep ignoring Russian President Vladimir Putin's threats of war escalation if they provide Ukraine with additional weapons.
Kremlin officials and Russian state-controlled media outlets responded to the news of the tanks with outrage. But George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government professor Mark N. Katz told Newsweek that the message from the West was clear: Putin's rhetoric wasn't going to cause them to back down.
"Putin's redlines are designed to deter Western states from crossing them, but Putin has not been able to prevent the West from crossing several of them," Katz said.
Lawrence C. Reardon, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, told Newsweek, "There is a growing global perception that Russian leaders resemble the boy that cried wolf."
He added, "When Russian forces are under pressure, Putin indirectly talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons to defend Russia, especially to defend the newly annexed areas of southeast Ukraine such as the Crimea."
Reardon said that while Western leaders haven't taken Putin's words as fact, they nevertheless likely don't take Russia's nuclear capabilities—or the chance of an angry Putin using them in Ukraine—for granted.
"Thus, the recent hesitance by Berlin and Washington to provide sophisticated tanks is not just related to the difficulty of Ukraine absorbing these tanks into their fighting forces, but also a fear of escalating the conflict," he said. "But western leaders are not crying wolf and no doubt have warned Putin that NATO will rapidly escalate involvement should Putin resort to tactical nuclear weapons."
Katz noted that "Putin and his cronies have already declared that Russia is at war with NATO or the 'Collective West,' not just Ukraine."
"The U.S. and NATO do seem to take seriously the possibility that there are some things Ukraine might do which could result in Putin escalating the conflict," he said.
Another reason why Ukraine's Western allies may feel emboldened in their support of Ukraine is that Russia for the most part has stumbled in its war efforts, according to Katz.
"If Putin's forces are not doing so well against Ukraine, it is hard to see how they can do better by escalating the conflict by attacking any NATO member," he said.

The Russians are the ones that invaded another country. No one ever planned to invade Russia. Their threats about protecting the integrity of Russia and the Russian people were always BS. It was never going to be about invading Russia. It's a proxy war . A trap for the Russians and they fell for it. Putin must not be as smart as people thought he was.

 

[Ghostse]

@CuzinEd
T-64 is closer to the T-80. The T-72 was an attempt to improve the T-62 to surpass the T-64 which had problems with the (for the time) advanced features.

The Abrams (and all US Army vehicles) runs best on JP8, but will run on anything that burns. Diesel engines will run JP-8. If you do get your entire supply chain on JP-8, you only have to run one fueling infrastructure.

The supply problems would be be a temporary growing pain if the infrastructure gets completely switched over.

 

[Pocket Dragoon]

@CuzinEd
The Abrams (and all US Army vehicles) runs best on JP8, but will run on anything that burns. Diesel engines will run JP-8. If you do get your entire supply chain on JP-8, you only have to run one fueling infrastructure.

Truth, I've seen it done. We were sent out to refuel/recover one that'd run dry at a TCP shortly before dinner chow, since their POL dogs got caught in an Iraqi rush-hour traffic jam coming down south. Our wrecker, fuel truck, & my guntrucks rolled in just in time to watch the crew fire up that M1 with some shit that looked & smelled like goddamn bunker oil, donated by a helpful KBR-TCN fuel convoy that happened to be crawling by. All while the relieving M1's crew & traffic-jammed hajis sat & made fun of them for running out of fuel in the first place.

That Abrams ran like shit, made a fuckload of black smoke & sounded very unhappy; but those fuckers were gonna make it back for chow & the gym in-time, by hook or crook.

The only things we had in our company that ran on anything other than JP-8 were some old as fuck generators that used mogas... along with the contact-truck CUCV that was an ex-ANG vehicle, donated to our motorpool by a redeploying bunch of ANG fags who wanted it off their books.

 

[Spicey McHaggis]

@CuzinEd
T-64 is closer to the T-80. The T-72 was an attempt to improve the T-62 to surpass the T-64 which had problems with the (for the time) advanced features.

Sort of, the T 72 design was originally intended to only be produced in a time of war as a cheaper mass produced tank. However those issues you mentioned, as well as the cost of the T-64 led to it being produced as a "good enough" service tank.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

Turkey shouldn't be in NATO to begin with.

IMO.

Turkey is a major pain in the ass, but they are too valuable to not have in NATO.
They are in control of the only enter and exit point from the Black Sea.
With them in NATO, they will block the black sea fleet from exiting the Black Sea.
Their army is also pretty huge and is of pretty good quality.

View attachment 4338626
Map for reference.

The answer is simple gentlemen: NATO should get together and enforce the Treaty of Sèvres as it was originally written (with all of European Turkey ceded to Greece and the eastern coast of the Sea of Marmara under permanent NATO occupation).

 

[Foltest]

Russia is warning Moldavia that if they apply for NATO membership they will get destroyed!!

Two influential Russian lawmakers warned on January 24 that Moldova considering Nato membership “may lead to its destruction”, after another Russian senator said the day before that President Maia Sandu risks repeating the "suicidal policy" of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The statements were prompted by Moldovan President Maia Sandu telling Politico that her country may seek membership of “a larger defence alliance” in order to consolidate its security. Moscow’s vehement objection to Ukraine joining Nato was one of the reasons for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. Like Ukraine, Moscow considers Moldova to be part of its sphere of influence.

https://www.intellinews.com/russian-lawmakers-warn-moldova-s-nato-aspirations-may-lead-to-its-destruction-267920/?source=moldova

https://archive.ph/HZP2A

A large part of Moldavia is a defacto russian puppet state.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Russia is warning Moldavia that if they apply for NATO membership they will get destroyed!!

Country that has suffered under russian aggression and manipulation, to the point that it has a section of it's territory effectively controlled by Russia, wants to escape from Russia's sphere of influence 2: Electric russiaboo.

 

[Astro Galactic Megalul]

Country that has suffered under russian aggression and manipulation, to the point that it has a section of it's territory effectively controlled by Russia, wants to escape from Russia's sphere of influence 2: Electric russiaboo.

America can't keep getting away with it!

 

[Useful_Mistake]

EU's Borrell wants South Africa to convince Russia to stop Ukraine war​

The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Friday said he hoped South Africa would use its good relations with Russia to convince it to stop the war in Ukraine.

"The EU isn't asking South Africa to choose sides, just asking countries across the world to stand with the UN Charter," said Borrell, speaking alongside South Africa's foreign minister Naledi Pandor in the capital Pretoria.

The EU considers South Africa an important partner in the rules-based international order, he added.

Pandor said: "It is not just South Africa and other African countries that must play a role at seeking peace."

https://ghostarchive.org/archive/NzEvQ

 

[CAPTAIN HAPPY]

Negotiations might go pretty south with this one.

 

[AgendaPoster]

Russia is warning Moldavia that if they apply for NATO membership they will get destroyed!!

https://www.intellinews.com/russian-lawmakers-warn-moldova-s-nato-aspirations-may-lead-to-its-destruction-267920/?source=moldova

https://archive.ph/HZP2A

A large part of Moldavia is a defacto russian puppet state.

A few more quick details about the Moldova situation (Moldavia is the historical name from when it was one of the 3 proto-Romanian principates).
- Maia Sandu is a very Western politician, former banker, etc. She's quite charismatic and gets far more access to high level politics in the EU compared to the former president, Igor Dodon, a pro-Russian "socialist", now imprisoned for corruption stuff (which is both probably true, yet also highly suspicious considering the context)
- Moldova already did a Ukraine in the 90s as the USSR collapsed, complete with a war, but Russia was far too weak to do its thing back then. Both Romania and Russia helped their corresponding sides. To make things a bit funny and weird for current year Ukraine supporters, Ukraine sided with Russia back then. Yup this part of the planet is messy.

- the Transnistrian War luckily did not spread and the area was left with the current separatist, Donbas-like Transnistria entity.
- Moldova was subjected to severe Russification so it's quite the polarized country and it no longer has a clear European/Romanian identity anymore. In many ways, Moldova suffered in a similar way as Ukraine is, because of the sin of being sandwiched between empires and influence zones. Don't expect that pro-NATO/EU sentiments are prevailing.
- NATO and EU have some requirements for joining, and Moldova is not really passing them, since it has a separatist area essentially stuck in a frozen war that could erupt any day. It's not that different from Serbia and Kosovo. So Maia Sandu is probably playing a political game here, as there's no clear path ahead for NATO or EU membership. Not to mention that besides pissing Russia and likely even Ukraine off, an EU/NATO Moldova does not serve any other visible goals.
The war has to stop and the situation of all these rebellious, separatist territories clarified before any NATO/EU stuff.

 

[DumbDude43]

The answer is simple gentlemen: NATO should get together and enforce the Treaty of Sèvres as it was originally written (with all of European Turkey ceded to Greece and the eastern coast of the Sea of Marmara under permanent NATO occupation).

this would require greece to be competent enough to claim and hold those territories. but greece is a total fuckup, a borderline failed state that is kept from collapse only by EU gibs.
like, these clowns can't even handle their own state finances or control their own borders, there's no fucking way they could handle the monumental task of occupying and consolidating control over thrace, constantinople, and parts of anatolia. they already tried a hundred years ago, when the western allies literally handed them all those territories on a silver platter, when turkey was in total collapse, and even then the greeks couldn't hold any of it.

 

[Exterminatus]

EU's Borrell wants South Africa to convince Russia to stop Ukraine war​

The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Friday said he hoped South Africa would use its good relations with Russia to convince it to stop the war in Ukraine.

"The EU isn't asking South Africa to choose sides, just asking countries across the world to stand with the UN Charter," said Borrell, speaking alongside South Africa's foreign minister Naledi Pandor in the capital Pretoria.

The EU considers South Africa an important partner in the rules-based international order, he added.

Pandor said: "It is not just South Africa and other African countries that must play a role at seeking peace."

https://ghostarchive.org/archive/NzEvQ

South Africa is a corrupt shithole that's more or less a bitch to Russia, so Mr. Borrell is an idiot. If Dollar Store Peter the Great hasn't stopped the war by now one of the flunkies isn't really going to be able to talk him into withdrawing.

 

[No. 7 cat]

NATO mechanics or "volunteers" from their countries of origin, and having to rotate them out frequently.
I'm going out on a limb here, and wondering if they are going to assign different vehicles to different units; i.e. some units fielding T-series with 2A46 guns; some units fielding M1s with American L/44, some units fielding Leo-2s with German L/55, etc., etc. It wont help with shit like transmissions, gear boxes, treads, axles, etc.; but at least as far as bringing ammo to the front lines goes.

Like I said previously, Ukraine is caught between a rock and a hard place.
If your choices are 1) logistical nightmare and 2) losing a defensive war; suddenly a logistical nightmare doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

Putin seems to want to fight to the last povver and convict, so Ukraine inflicting somewhat more casualties or holding is surely not sustainable. Poland and other countries have Leopard experience. Hopefully not as gammy as modernday M-Bs, as in they don't need a maintenance crew following closely behind.

this would require greece to be competent enough to claim and hold those territories. but greece is a total fuckup, a borderline failed state that is kept from collapse only by EU gibs.
like, these clowns can't even handle their own state finances or control their own borders, there's no fucking way they could handle the monumental task of occupying and consolidating control over thrace, constantinople, and parts of anatolia. they already tried a hundred years ago, when the western allies literally handed them all those territories on a silver platter, when turkey was in total collapse, and even then the greeks couldn't hold any of it.

They lost everything in Anatolia by trying to conquer far more than they were granted. Megali Idea / we wuz kangs was / is (see also pro Russian Serbs) one hell of a drug. Gen. Mustapha Kemal saw to it that their vanity had a very high price.

 

[Hollywood Hitler]

The West Calls Putin's Bluff​

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kremlin officials have warned multiple times over the 11 months since the invasion of Ukraine started that Western inference could result in an escalation. However, the United States and other Western allies of Ukraine have repeatedly crossed Putin's supposed red lines.
"If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people. This is not a bluff," Putin said in September address while the U.S. continued providing Ukraine with more armaments to fight on territory illegitimately annexed by Putin.
More recently, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov provided such a warning about arming Ukraine in December. He said, "Weapon supplies continue, the assortment of supplied weapons is expanding. All this, of course, leads to an aggravation of the conflict and, in fact, does not bode well for Ukraine."
If anything, the weapons coming to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from the West escalated after Peskov's remarks. This week alone, President Joe Biden took the large step of saying the U.S. will provide Ukraine with 31 M1 Abrams tanks. His announcement came on the same day that Germany confirmed it would give Ukrainian forces 13 Leopard 2 tanks.
U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western allies of Ukraine keep ignoring Russian President Vladimir Putin's threats of war escalation if they provide Ukraine with additional weapons.
Kremlin officials and Russian state-controlled media outlets responded to the news of the tanks with outrage. But George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government professor Mark N. Katz told Newsweek that the message from the West was clear: Putin's rhetoric wasn't going to cause them to back down.
"Putin's redlines are designed to deter Western states from crossing them, but Putin has not been able to prevent the West from crossing several of them," Katz said.
Lawrence C. Reardon, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, told Newsweek, "There is a growing global perception that Russian leaders resemble the boy that cried wolf."
He added, "When Russian forces are under pressure, Putin indirectly talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons to defend Russia, especially to defend the newly annexed areas of southeast Ukraine such as the Crimea."
Reardon said that while Western leaders haven't taken Putin's words as fact, they nevertheless likely don't take Russia's nuclear capabilities—or the chance of an angry Putin using them in Ukraine—for granted.
"Thus, the recent hesitance by Berlin and Washington to provide sophisticated tanks is not just related to the difficulty of Ukraine absorbing these tanks into their fighting forces, but also a fear of escalating the conflict," he said. "But western leaders are not crying wolf and no doubt have warned Putin that NATO will rapidly escalate involvement should Putin resort to tactical nuclear weapons."
Katz noted that "Putin and his cronies have already declared that Russia is at war with NATO or the 'Collective West,' not just Ukraine."
"The U.S. and NATO do seem to take seriously the possibility that there are some things Ukraine might do which could result in Putin escalating the conflict," he said.
Another reason why Ukraine's Western allies may feel emboldened in their support of Ukraine is that Russia for the most part has stumbled in its war efforts, according to Katz.
"If Putin's forces are not doing so well against Ukraine, it is hard to see how they can do better by escalating the conflict by attacking any NATO member," he said.

Russia needs to grow a pair, seriously. Putin is getting punked by an army that is replacing it's able-bodied men with trannies, pregnant women, and girls with two moms.

What a bitch ass snow ape.